This issue brief describes the increasing incidence of deaths in local jails, often by suicide in the days immediately after arrest, and analyzes the underlying causes such as untreated substance use and mental health disorders. It recommends strategies to reduce these deaths, including better…

This academic paper conducted a review of existing literature describing new services and service modifications implemented by treatment and harm reduction programs serving people who use opioids, and also discusses implications for policy and practice. The authors set their literature review in…

This research report from Altarum calculates the overall economic cost of the opioid crisis as well as a breakdown of the overall costs and who is bearing the burden. The report estimates that the cost…

This paper outlines the impact of an educational program aimed towards decreasing stigma around opioid use disorder and medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). The authors trained health science graduate students to present on the opioid crisis and the usefulness of MOUD to community members…

This is a report which describes how to develop a more coordinated and comprehensive health education system in regards to opioid use disorder. The report provides information on the current health professional education environment and also a survey of its regulations. The literature review…

This is an academic paper that examined an intervention that provided caregivers of patients in a pediatric emergency department education on safe medication storage and disposal as well as a lock box. Findings show that, at baseline, very few caregivers engaged in safe medication storage and…

This study examined the state of the literature on the effectiveness of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) delivered in prisons and jails on community substance use treatment engagement, opioid use, recidivism, and health risk behaviors following release from incarceration.

The…

This research paper found that implementation of an emergency department (ED)–based peer recovery support program for opioid overdose was associated with improvements in initiation of medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD). The efficacy of peer support depended on factors such as…

This peer-reviewed paper is an adequate summary of the effectiveness of brief interventions in the emergency department for alcohol use disorder and substance use disorder, with a specific section on opioid use disorder. 

This is a report from the Maryland Hospital Association that provides recommendations to hospitals on protocols in place for patients treated for an overdose or identified as having a substance use disorder. These protocols include universal screening, naloxone access, facilitated referrals, and…

This is an academic paper that provides a scoping review of post-overdose responses implemented by emergency medical services (EMS). 27 programs were identified with themes including providing harm reduction in the community, integration with law enforcement, innovative community outreach, and…

This report is published by the Legal Action Center and describes evidence-based practices for providing substance use disorder care and how they are successfully implemented or not implemented in different hospital emergency department settings. The report explains possible reasons for certain…

This report from the Harvard Kennedy School describes the importance of the state-local relationship, using the example of the Governor of Massachusetts' administrations interaction with cities and towns. It also includes toolboxes of programs, structures and strategies utilized by the Baker-…

This is a report from the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at UPenn that provides four recommendations for the federal government to consider in addressing the opioid crisis in the domains of cautious opioid prescribing, treatment and recovery services, harm reduction strategies, and…

This is a report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse that provides proven and promising strategies from a range of evidence-based resources, thus offering a clear and concise set of actions that states can take. Its aim is to help state policymakers understand what a public…

This is a report from SAMHSA that gives an overview of HEALing Communities Study and how this project engaged community coalitions. This report's purpose is to help build and sustain community coalitions to address the opioid crisis. 

This is an academic paper that reviews the literature on including people who use drugs (PWUD) as part of research, intervention development and implementation, and policy advocacy. The barriers of stigma and discrimination must be addressed to improve engagement of PWUD in the decision-making…

This academic paper is a review that presents strategies to improve opioid use disorder treatment and recovery with a focus on engineering approaches grounded in systems thinking. Specifically, this paper describes how the field of engineering can play an important supporting role in the opioid…

This report from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing gives an overview of harm reduction vending machines and how they can help communities respond to the opioid crisis, including start-up and operating costs, appropriate settings, data collection, and legal considerations. 

This academic paper summarizes a peer recovery support program to engage individuals using opioids and link them with a range of services. Results show that this program effectively engaged and linked individuals to mental health and treatment services.